He Won’t Actually Take Away My Insurance, Will He?

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“I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.”

Linger on that last phrase: simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them.

It comes from Sarah Kliff of Vox, who went to Corbin, Ky., to interview people who had received health insurance from Obamacare — and then voted from Donald Trump.

To some extent, they understood what they were doing, that their insurance was a result of Obamacare, and that Trump vowed to repeal it. They voted for him anyway, because they liked other things about him and because they figured he wouldn’t really get rid of their insurance. If anything, they hoped he would fix the parts they didn’t like, just as he promised.

But there is no magical fix for Obamacare. Our health care system is a messy hybrid of the public and private sectors. Obamacare eschewed radical change — which would have been even less popular, given the disruptions — for progress within the current framework. And the law has done far more good than bad, by expanding insurance coverage and helping slow the growth of medical costs.

The Republican Party has essentially tied itself to a magical solution: getting rid of the law while keeping its benefits. The party does seem committed to repealing major parts of the law early in 2017, as Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan laid out in a smart tweetstorm yesterday. Yet Republicans could cause a lot of anger and frustration if they stick to their plan.

How do they solve their dilemma — a dilemma with real-life consequences for many people? It’s one of the biggest mysteries of 2017. I’ll continue to hope that those Kentucky voters have their optimism rewarded, but it’s a deeply wishful form of optimism.